Plum Pudding

Sadly, we don’t use plums in traditional plum pudding any longer. Today — and perhaps just as deliciously — plum pudding is an amalgam of suet, raisins and dried currants, peel almonds or other nuts and a host of about 15 different wintry, seasonal spices that make this the traditional dish that it is.

Steamed or boiled, plum or Christmas pudding is gilded with a “hard sauce” — butter and sugar mostly, the former of which makes it hard in the fridge — of warmed and flambéed brandy or rum. To me, it says “Christmas.”